


Corrosive

by castiiron



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Self Harm Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 20:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15057662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castiiron/pseuds/castiiron
Summary: Connor wonders what would happen to him if CyberLife terminated him permanently. For a moment, he forgets that machines aren’t designed to question morality. He forgets his replaceability and thinks about what death would force him to miss.Connor feels too much, all at once.





	Corrosive

**Author's Note:**

> Set after [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrJcLpo5d5A) scene and based from [this](https://twitter.com/hewweooo/status/1009572714686832640) excellent art and concept.

There’s a lump in Connor’s throat.

Like he’s jostled a crucial biocomponent in his internal casing and it has lodged itself in his artificial airway. It’s uncomfortable and he’s hyper aware of it. He thinks if androids could sweat he would be producing it in excess. He knows his LED is permanently stuck flickering from orange to red. Processing, _swallow it down_ , processing, _it won’t move_ , _process_ , _god damn it._

He’s glad Hank is too preoccupied with the road to notice, knuckles gripped tight over the steering wheel of the manual car he stubbornly refuses to upgrade. He’s tense, Connor can feel it wash over him in waves without having to go to the effort to analyse. Connor also does not need to ask why.

They’ve come from Stratford Tower, the broadcasting station in the heart of the city. Connor had done his job perfectly, as always. He’s always sure to see his missions through to success regardless of consequence. They had extracted sufficient evidence from the scene. A model number, a name; _Jericho_.

He’d seen it in the android he’d pried it from, the one that shot him in the shoulder. Rusted metal, peeling paint, fear, pain, and then… nothing at all.  
  
Connor plays the scene over behind his eyes as they drive back to Hank’s house, he can’t help himself. It’s intoxicating, the intensity of emotion he was never meant to experience. He feels it again and again. Fear, pain, nothing, fear, pain, nothing. The lump in his throat grows, threatens to cut him off from air he doesn’t need.  
  
Hot, coursing fear, dispersing through his chest, grabbing at his artificial heart and burning, searing.  
  
Sharp, metallic pain. He tastes foreign thirium. On his tongue, down his throat and around the blockage that’s settled there, the one he’s not sure actually exists now either.  
  
Then nothing. Sweet, silent nothing. Satisfying, relaxing, peaceful numbness.  
  
These are not his; these uniquely human emotions.  
  
Yet he scrambles to replay them over, in case they disappear, in case CyberLife erases them, in case they find out what he’s been burdened with. Once more, just once more.  
  
He thinks his chest probably... hurts.

 “... nor!” Hank is snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Hey!”

 Connor blinks. They’ve come to a stop out the front of Hank’s house, the snow outside quickly building up over the windshield. Hank is watching his LED flicker. He looks a mix of his usual discontent and concern.

 “Sorry, Lieutenant. I was… re-analysing the scene in case we missed something.” Not technically a lie.

 Hank sighs. “You don’t need to do that, we went over everything. The station will let us know if they find anything else important.”

 "I know.”

“Good,” Hank says gruffly. “Then get out, it’s fucking cold.”

As usual, he doesn’t feel the wind bite at his skin, nor the hair that tickles his face as it falls into his eyes. For the first time, it feels wrong, he feels numb. He’s nostalgic for something he has never had.

He’s vaguely aware that he’s followed Hank indoors but it doesn’t register until he’s shifted off balance by Sumo, who nudges his hand where he stands in the hallway.

Connor breathes.

It’s grounding.

It’s unnecessary.

It helps.

He rests a hand on Sumo’s head in acknowledgement.

“What are you doing still standing in doorway?” Hank asks, emerging from the bathroom, shrugging out of his jacket. “Jesus, you’re making me uncomfortable. Go make yourself at home like you normally do.” He waves down the hall.

Connor does as he is told, following Sumo as he trots lazily in front.

Hank had refused to let him travel back to his storage room at Cyberlife. The weather is bad, and is expected to worsen overnight. It leaves the house dark, he should turn on a light. He doesn’t.

There’s a lump in his throat.

He breathes.

Sumo whines for his dinner. Connor doesn’t hear it. His synthetic ears still ring with the sound of the gunshot he replays in his head.

Fear, pain, nothing.

He breathes.

Hank is pouring himself a drink. Connor should berate him. He doesn’t. He wonders what kind of relief alcohol gives.

“You okay?” Hank asks, eyes glancing to his LED once again. “You seem distracted; you’re not sending another report are you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Well, sit down or something,” Hank suggests, flicking the lights on in the kitchen, pulling a box of dry dog food down from the top of the fridge. Connor pretends he isn’t aware of Hank watching him out of the corner of his eyes as he scratches Sumo behind the ears.

Hank is concerned, maybe rightfully so, Connor isn’t sure yet. He takes off his jacket and folds it over the back of the couch before sitting down, hoping it might make Hank more comfortable if it looks like he is relaxed.

It’s easier to breathe this way.

The unnatural habit is comforting in a way he doesn’t understand. Repetition, something to focus on, keeping him from replaying the scene on the roof again. Although the action is easy to forget when it’s not wired into your code.

Connor sits on the couch, Sumo’s side. He’ll have to remind himself to brush his pants off before tomorrow, knowing how much fur the dog sheds. The couch dips as Hank settles next to him, he’s tense even as he sinks into the cushions.

“You wanna watch something?” He asks flipping the television on. “Do you have a favourite movie?” Hank pauses. “Have you ever even _seen_ a movie?”

“There is no need for me to sit through films when I can access an entire database of cinema at will,” Connor answers, perhaps over factually.

Hank grumbles beside him, rolling his eyes probably, Connor can’t see from this angle. “None of them pique your interest? You don’t want to see how the story plays out yourself?”

“Not particularly, it doesn’t seem like a valuable use of time.” Talking helps distract himself from the burning that lingers in his chest, the embers that flicker when he willingly subjects himself to the deviant’s memories.

“Because you’ve never actually had time to kill. I forget that you can just switch yourself off.”

“Not off, only CyberLife can do that. I can self activate sleep mode, which is what I do when I am not needed, yes.”

Connor wonders if turning sleep mode on and off would remove this new discomfort from his body, ease the intensity of the memories. He doubts it.

Hank hums over his drink.

It’s quiet.

Connor breathes.

They watch a rerun of the game Hank had missed the previous night. He had adjusted himself in his seat when the channel flipped. Excitement? Happiness? Hank’s heart rate had increased, just a fraction.

He doesn’t know the rules but he doesn’t voice his complaint. Hank looks content. Connor stares at the television and sees something completely different anyway.

Fear, pain, nothing.

It’s addictive in the same way he thinks a human might enjoy self mutilation; a forced reaction when the body refuses to feel for itself. Relief when it’s over, the only kind he’s ever been allowed to know.

He remembers the deviant’s hesitance to terminate itself. It thought of Jericho, something that held importance for reasons Connor is unsure of. It thought of death in the same way a human would; it was scared, it didn’t want to die.

Connor wonders what would happen to him if CyberLife terminated him permanently. For a moment, he forgets that machines aren’t designed to question morality. He forgets his replaceability and thinks about what death would force him to miss.

The emotions he’d transferred from the deviant carried a painful consequence, Connor wonders if all emotions feel the same. He can differentiate fear and pain now, but what about sadness? Are fear and anger similar? Would his synthetic body react in the same ways? Was this pain a natural symptom of strife, of all negative emotions?

If that was the case, what did undiluted happiness feel like? What about love?

Connor had sacrificed himself for the case previously, he’d seen how Hank despised him for it. His aversion to letting Connor throw himself away. What if next time was permanent? What would become of Hank once their mission was successful and Connor returned to CyberLife?

He breathes. It hurts.

His imagined pain seems to manifest itself in his biocomponents, finding something to permanently latch itself to.

A malfunction, surely. He scans himself for the umpteenth time in order to find a cause for it, for the burning in his thirium pump, the lump in his throat.

All systems are operating normally. He can see the reflection of his LED in the television screen, whirring erratically.

Red.

Did CyberLife find out about the incident? Had they scoured his data and found human emotions, evidence of possible deviancy? Had they realised how obsessive he had become over them? Was CyberLife corroding his components from the inside in order to cause a manual reset?

He can’t breathe.

It hurts.

“Hank,” Connor rasps around the obstruction in his throat. He lifts his hands up to his neck to feel for something that isn’t there, to put pressure on something that doesn’t need it. He sinks to his knees on the floor for lack of a way to cope, curls in on himself in a pointless attempt at keeping the pain from spreading. “Hank, help.”

“Connor?” He hears Hank next to him, a tentative hand on his shoulder as though he’s not sure if it’s okay to touch, as though Connor might break apart further under his hands.

“It hurts.” He grasps at the thin skin of his neck, he feels it recede under his desperate clawing. “It hurts to breathe.”

“Hurts? I thought androids didn’t need to-.”

Connor tries coughing; nothing dislodges. It continues to burn, to choke, to swell until he thinks he might not be able to talk at all. Was this CyberLife’s plan to keep him from running his mouth? To melt his biocomponents beyond repair? It doesn’t make sense. He digs in his fingers.

He’s struggling to process logically, acting on fabricated instinct that never should have evolved.

Remove the malfunctioning part.

Stop the virus.

“We don’t - get it out.” Warning signs flash behind his eyes as the plastic at his neck cracks beneath his fingers. “I need to get it out.” He coughs again.

“Get what out?” He’s vaguely aware of how distressed Hank sounds through the ringing in his ears, alarms. Hank pries at his fingers, trying to pull them away from his neck. Connor is stronger because Connor isn’t human. “Connor, stop! Let go, you’re bleeding!”

Fear, pain.

The nothing part of the equation still hung above his head, a sweet memory. The more he claws for it, the higher it pulls away.

His chest burns, fear tightening, threatening to crumble his manufactured heart under its weight.

Hank grabs his hands before he can try to scratch away at that too. Brings them to his chest, brings Connor to his chest.

“What do you need? Tell me how I can help.”

Hank is warm, he thinks. He pretends. He wishes he knew what warmth felt like, he’s sure he would be able to edit Hank’s name under the dictionary definition if he did. Connor clenches his fists until his fingernails dig into his palms, staining thirium where they touch. Staining Hank, his hands where they’re secured around Connors own, staining his shirt.

Connor breathes. It hurts, but he breathes.

“Should I call CyberLife?” Hank asks, the vibration of his words reverberating against Connor’s shoulder.

He feels himself tense at the suggestion. He knows Hank is just trying to help but the thought of it threatens to spark the fire in his chest that was just beginning to go out. “No. It’ll go away.”

“Are you okay? Connor, talk to me.”

“Just, stay like this,” he demands, trying to even out his breathing, hoping that it will somehow dissipate the pain. Hoping that this very human way of trying to relax will work on his body of plastic and metal. “It’ll go away,” he repeats, to reassure them both.

Hank lets go of his hands and wraps them around his shoulders instead, Connor entangles his own in the fabric of Hank’s shirt for lack of something better to ground himself with. Apparently that is something he seems to need at the moment, second to oxygen. He’ll run an analysis for possible reasons why later. There will be a logical, mechanical reason behind this. He’s sure. He must have missed something over his devious intent to feel.

On the floor of the lounge room, Connor times his breathing with Hank’s until he finds himself not needing to breathe at all.

Until once again, he is welcomed by the relief of nothing.

Familiar, analytical, nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Twitter: [@castiiron](https://twitter.com/castiiron)  
> Tumblr: [@castiiron](https://castiiron.tumblr.com/)


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